Peter May - Extraordinary People

Enzo blew his frustration through pursed lips. ‘April 1st, April 1st, April 1st.’ He repeated it over and over under his breath as he made his way across the room to the open windows. He stood holding the rail and looking out over the treetops in the square. ‘What other significance might April 1st have in the French calendar?’ No sooner had the words left his mouth than he checked himself. ‘Calendar,’ he said. ‘What Saints day falls on April 1st?’

Nicole made a quick internet search. ‘Saint Hugues.’ She looked towards him. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’

Enzo turned back into the room. ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Try a search of Saint Hugues and see what we come up with.’

As Nicole tapped at the keyboard she said, ‘You know, whoever put these clues together ten years ago wouldn’t have had the help of the internet.’

It wasn’t something Enzo had considered before. ‘No, of course they wouldn’t. The internet was still in its infancy in those days.’

‘And most of the stuff we’re digging up wouldn’t even have been on it then.’

‘You’re right.’ Enzo realised that Gaillard’s killers could never, in their wildest dreams, have imagined that ten years on, the information which, then, would have taken days, weeks, even months to find, could be accessed in seconds on the internet.

‘Oh, my God,’ Nicole said suddenly. ‘This is the only problem with the net.’ She was gazing forlornly at the screen. ‘Information overload. There are six thousand, four hundred and forty links to pages containing mentions of Saint Hugues. There seem to be lots of Saint Hugues too. Saint Hugues de Cluny…de Grenoble…de Chartreuse…Do you want me to go on?’

Enzo shook his head. ‘I need a drink.’

Nicole looked at her watch. ‘It’s too early, Monsieur Macleod.’

‘Nicole, it’s never too early.’ Enzo picked his way through to the dining room and opened a fresh bottle of whisky from the drinks cabinet. ‘Do you want something?’

‘A diet Coke. There are bottles in the fridge.’

He poured himself a large measure and took her a bottle of diet Coke. After removing a pizza carryout box from his recliner, he settled himself in the chair. ‘I see you’ve been eating well.’

‘I’m not much of a cook, Monsieur Macleod. My dad really wanted a boy, so I know more about ploughing and shearing and milking than I do about cooking.’

Enzo took a long sip from his glass and closed his eyes as the whisky burned down inside him. Immediately, he sat upright again. ‘We’re missing something here. None of these clues stands alone. I mean, they always connect in some way with one or more of the others.’ He took another slug of whisky and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes again to try to concentrate. ‘April 1st already has a religious connotation because it’s engraved on the back of a crucifix. So maybe we’re not looking for Saint Hugues. Just Hugues .’

‘So?’

‘So why don’t we try combining Hugues with one of the other clues?’

‘What, like with the Knights Templar?’

‘That, or…Dom Perignon. Or even just champagne.’

Nicole shrugged and typed in Hugues and champagne and hit the return key. Enzo watched her face closely as her eyes flickered back and forth across the screen. Suddenly they lit up, and she threw her arms in the air. ‘Monsieur Macleod, you’re a genius!’

And the word genius was like a finger poking at an open wound. She told me there was no point in even trying to compete with her genius of a father , Bertrand had told him.

‘There are links all over the place to an Hugues de Champagne. And you’re not going to believe this — to the Knights Templar as well.’

Enzo stood up. ‘How? What’s the connection?’

‘Wait a minute….’ Her fingers danced across the keyboard, and he went to stand behind her so that he could see what she was pulling up on screen. It was a page headed, HUGUES DE CHAMPAGNE 1074–1125. Enzo leaned over to read it. Several paragraphs detailed his parentage, his childhood, his marriage, and then his first trip to Palestine in the year 1104. His first marriage in 1093 to Constance, the daughter of King Philip the First of France, was annulled in his absence, and when he returned three years later he was remarried to a young girl called Elisabeth de Varais. Evidently it didn’t take quite as long for the shine to wear off the second union, for seven years later he took off again for Palestine, this time in the company of his vassal, Hugues de Payens, along with Geoffrey de St. Omer, Hugues d’Hautvillers, and five others. There, in Jerusalem, in 1118, they established the Order of the Knights of the Temple, and Champagne’s vassal Hugues de Payens became its first Grand Master.

‘What a lot of Hugues there were in those days,’ Nicole said.

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Enzo whispered into the afternoon heat. And he nearly danced across the room to the whiteboard. ‘Hugues de Champagne.’ He wrote it up on the board and circled it. Then he drew extravagant arrows to the name from the crucifix, the lapel pin, the champagne bottle, and the Knights Templar. He stood breathing heavily, gazing at it, and took another gulp of whisky.

Nicole was regarding it with something less than conviction. ‘And?’ she asked, finally.

‘And what?’

‘Just and.’

He looked at the board again, and his enthusiasm began to wane. ‘Okay, so I don’t see any tie-up with the dog.’

‘And what about the date on the champagne bottle? And why specifically Moët et Chandon and Dom Perignon?’

Enzo sat on a pile of books and emptied his glass with less enthusiasm than he had filled it. ‘I don’t know. Maybe there’s something on the label. Maybe we need to get a bottle of that vintage to see.’ He sighed. What a roller-coaster ride this was. ‘What does it say about the 1990 on the net?’

Nicole had anticipated the question and was already pulling up search results. ‘It’s nearly all wine-sellers,’ she said. ‘Oh, wait a minute, here’s a magazine piece….’ She tapped some more, then read, ‘Dom Perignon was launched in 1921 by Moët et Chandon as their top of the line champagne. It is a single vineyard wine, made only from grapes grown in that one vineyard, and only made in certain years when the harvest is exceptional. It is renowned for its colour and flavour and the longevity of its finish.’ She looked up. ‘Between 1978 and 1993, the 1990 vintage gets the third highest points rating. Hmmm. Wouldn’t mind a glass of that. I like champagne.’

They heard the door from the landing open and then Sophie’s exclamation, ‘Oh, my God, what’s that smell?’ There was the sound of another door opening, and then a shriek even more shrill than the first. Sophie appeared in the doorway, her eyes full of astonishment and repugnance. ‘Papa, there are ducks in the bath!’

‘I know,’ Enzo said wearily.

‘Well, what are they doing there?’

‘Shitting and eating,’ he said. But it was not a conversation he wanted to pursue. ‘I’m going out for some air.’ He crossed the room, stopping briefly in the doorway to give Sophie a peck on the cheek.

‘But what are they for?’ she called after him.

‘Roasting,’ he shouted back.

He was halfway down the stairs when she called again. ‘Where’s Bertrand’s metal detector?’

‘Ask Bertrand!’

It was a relief to escape the apartment, and the head-banging process of trying to decipher the clues. Enzo felt as if he was beginning to understand the thought processes of Gaillard’s killers, to get inside their heads. And it was not a pleasant place to be.